Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sat across from parents who buried their children, a 13-year-old shot in 1990, a 29-year-old killed in 2002, a 25-year-old law student run over in 2010, and told them the federal government would no longer look the other way. The newly installed Cabinet secretary held an emotional meeting Friday at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in downtown Los Angeles, where he heard testimony from California families whose loved ones were killed by illegal immigrants and pledged a "zero tolerance policy" against anyone who obstructs federal agents, the New York Post reported.

The meeting put faces and names to a policy fight that California's political leadership has tried to keep abstract. Mullin, 48, a former Oklahoma senator who won Senate confirmation as DHS secretary after replacing Kristi Noem, used the occasion to accuse state Democrats of shielding convicted criminals from federal immigration detainers, and to warn that the consequences of that choice are measured in body counts.

Three families, three preventable deaths

Agnes Gibboney, 71, of Rancho Cucamonga, recalled losing her son Ronald Da Silva. He was 29 when Luis Humberto Gonzales, an illegal immigrant, shot and killed him in 2002.

"Every time I go to the cemetery I tell him, 'I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you.'"

Gibboney told those gathered that the grief never fades. "You don't heal," she said. She told the Post she had recently spoken with President Donald Trump about what she called the state's "liberal insanity."

Don Rosenberg, 73, of Westlake Village, described the 2010 death of his son Drew, a 25-year-old San Francisco law student. Roberto Galo, a Honduran national living in the country illegally and without a driver's license, struck Drew while he was riding his motorcycle.

"He backed over him a second time and then went forward over him a third time."

Galo served 43 days in jail in 2012 on charges of vehicular manslaughter and driving without a license. Forty-three days for a young man's life. Rosenberg's conclusion was blunt: "Had he been arrested and deported, my son would be alive." He added: "I don't care if they haven't committed a crime, if they're here illegally, deport them all."

The oldest case belonged to Angie Morfin, 67, of Salinas. Her son Ruben was 13 years old in 1990 when Ezequiel Marscal, described as a Mexican gang member, shot him. Marscal fled to Mexico. Mexican authorities declined to extradite him because he faced the death penalty in the United States. He served a 20-year sentence in Mexico instead.

"As a mother, you don't want people to think that he deserved to die."

Morfin said the loss "changed my life forever." Christie Mullin, the secretary's wife of 29 years, wiped away tears as Morfin spoke.

Mullin targets California's detainer refusals

Mullin did not hold back about who he holds responsible for the policy failures behind these deaths. He said California Democrats refuse to allow federal immigration detainers to be served on convicted criminals being released from state prisons and jails.

"These are individuals that have been convicted of a crime, and they're being released from state prisons or state jails. It's shameful. I actually think it's criminal."

He cited what he called "a tremendous amount of illegal activity happening right here in LA, plus all across the state." He said local and state cooperation would allow federal authorities to remove dangerous offenders. Without it, convicted criminals walk back into communities where families like the Gibboneys, Rosenbergs, and Morfins live.

The secretary called the meeting "powerful" and framed the stakes in plain terms. "Every single life that's taken by an illegal is 100% preventable," he said. "They're more interested in protecting criminals than law-abiding citizens."

That charge, that elected Democrats have chosen to shield illegal immigrants with criminal records over the safety of their own constituents, is the central indictment Mullin brought to Los Angeles. The detainer issue is not theoretical. A detainer is a request from ICE asking a local jail to hold an inmate briefly so federal agents can take custody before release. When jurisdictions refuse to honor those requests, convicted offenders walk free into the public.

Mullin's appointment came after Kristi Noem's departure from DHS, and his first weeks have signaled a more confrontational posture toward sanctuary jurisdictions.

'Zero tolerance' and a warning to obstructors

Beyond the emotional weight of the families' testimony, Mullin laid down a direct enforcement threat. He announced what he called a "zero tolerance policy" for interference with federal immigration operations.

"If you're going to get in the way of us doing our job, we're going to arrest you along with the criminal that we're going after."

That warning applies broadly, to local officials, activists, or anyone else who physically or procedurally blocks ICE agents from executing lawful duties. Mullin framed the issue as one of national identity: "What separates us from a third-world country is we're a nation of laws." He accused what he called "radical left extreme Democrats" of trying to "destroy the system."

The DHS leadership transition has come amid broader shifts in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement apparatus. Recent departures from Trump's immigration team have raised questions about continuity, but Mullin's Los Angeles appearance was designed to project resolve rather than uncertainty.

Working with Los Angeles, up to a point

Mullin also addressed his relationship with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat. He acknowledged policy disagreements but said he intends to set them aside for practical reasons.

"I may not agree with all of her policies, but I have to set those aside. Right now, we're working on FIFA... and then we have to focus on the 2028 Olympics."

The comment reflected a pragmatic calculation. Los Angeles will host massive international events in the coming years, and federal-local coordination on security is unavoidable. Mullin told the families directly: "Your city doesn't have to be like that." The implication was clear, the current state of affairs in Los Angeles is a choice, not an inevitability.

The administration has also drawn attention to the broader human cost of lax immigration enforcement in other contexts. Officials recently announced they had located 146,000 migrant children lost during the Biden years, a figure that underscores the scale of the system's failures.

The math of 43 days

The details from these families tell a story that policy debates often obscure. A 13-year-old boy shot dead. His killer fled across the border and served time in another country's prison because American justice was blocked by an extradition technicality. A law student run over three times. His killer spent six weeks in jail. A 29-year-old shot by a man who should never have been in the country.

These are not edge cases cherry-picked for political theater. They are the lived consequences of a system that, in California, has been deliberately structured to limit cooperation between state and federal law enforcement on immigration. The families who showed up at that ICE field office on Friday did not come to make a political argument. They came because no one in Sacramento ever showed up for them.

Mullin called the meeting powerful. The families might use a different word. For Agnes Gibboney, who has visited her son's grave for more than two decades, the word is simpler: preventable.

When the people who write the laws care more about protecting illegal immigrants from deportation than protecting citizens from violent crime, the laws have stopped serving the people they were written for. Tributes and gestures are fine. But what these families needed, and what California's leaders refused to give them, was enforcement.